The pizzas look awesome! I am going to attempt to make one for my wife this weekend. Three questions for you if you have a minute:

1) Is it possible to make a thin crust version with the whole grain dough?2) Do you know approximately how many net carbs you get per slice?3) Do you need to cook the pizzas at such a high temp, or can you get away with 500F?

Yes, thin crust is easy with this dough, just stretch it out more, thin is in!I used 186 gm of WW flour per pizza so that would be 130 carbs total in the crust. Each 30 gm of flour has 21 carbs as per the nutrition facts on the package. A pizza with 6 slices would be about 22 carbs per slice for the crust.

I cooked these pizzas at around 600 degrees and I think your pizzas with turn out very good at 500+ degrees.

Quick IntroÖ A few years ago I was making pizza more than once a week, currently Iím lucky if itís once a month. In the past it was mostly high gluten King Arthur flour but then I came across this thread and decided to try to replicate Villa Romaís success. Iíve only skimmed the thread so I apologize if I missed something that was mentioned or something that changed in the recipe somewhere along the way. I didnít find anything that was considered to be the master recipe.

I donít mind the flavor or texture of whole wheat flour but I Ďm just not excited about it in my pizza. I was hoping this would turn out similar to pizza made with high gluten flour. I knew I wasnít going to be able to get the same results at Villa Roma (my oven only gets to 550). I would love to be an active contributor on this thread but due to the busyness of everyday live, I donít expect thatís going to happen.

Hereís the recipe I followed:WW Flour 100% (1000g) (King Arthur)Water 85% (850g)Sugar 2% (20g)Salt 2% (20g)Oil 2% (20g to start)IDY( 1/8 tsp per) I follow a modified technique that pftaylor used on Pizza Raquel http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1258.msg11359.html#msg11359My rationale was that this makes dough thatís very easy to work with and will stretch with easily. Here are the steps I followed:1. Mix salt, sugar oil and water until everything is dissolved2. Add Ĺ the flour then mix for 1 minute 3. Add the yeast and mix for about 30 seconds until everything is incorporated4. Cover and let it rest for 20 minutes5. Over 8 minutes slowly add the rest of the flour at speed of 1 on mixer (Iím not sure if it takes longer to dissolve the whole-wheat compared to KA high gluten flour but usually I can easily get everything mixed in 5 minutes it felt like it took longer with this flour.6. Mix on speed 2 or 3 for 5 more minutes.7. Cover and let it sit for 60 minutes8. Normally I would go right to the hand kneading but the dough was so soft that I turned it to power 3 -4 for 10-15 minutes. At the beginning of that time it was sticking to the bottom and even slightly up the sides of the bowl, by the end it wasnít sticking at all.9. Let is rest about 5 minutes10. Oil the surface of counter and dump dough and fold it over itself a few times then return to bowl11. Wait an hour12. Repeat (did this several times before I went to bed, I was hoping the ball would feel a little more firm when I checked on it but that never happened)13. Wait an hour 14. Repeat and then divide into 5 balls15. Sit on counter 24 hours (from start time)16. ShapeI took the first ball and I dumped it onto the counter. I tried to stretch it but it literally fell apart. It was too slack and there was nothing holding it together. I cooked it without sauce or cheese (see picture)For the second ball I folded it over itself and formed it back into a ball, waited about a minute than tried to shape the pizza. This was fairly successful but still hard to keep together to transfer to the peel. I topped and tried to slide it in the oven but it stuck in one place and I lost a bit of the pizza. (The dough was just so wet that it caused a problem).

The third one I shaped on the peel but I ended up adding so much flour to the bottom that it resulted in raw flour taste on the bottom of the pizza that I didnít want.As I went to put the last one in the oven I realized that the fourth one was still in the oven and as a result I wasnít able to get it into the oven fast enough. I ended up having to roll the dough over itself so that I could slide it into the oven.I had five doughís and I varied my technique each time never came up with a technique that worked very well. The doughís either fell apart or stuck to the peel or had way too much raw flourI added considerable more sauce than I normally would and I added some provolone and pecorino Romano so that the cheese would have a more assertive flavor. For a little interest I chopped up some sun dried tomatoes (soaked them in water) and added them to one of the pizzas.

In the end although none of my pizzas were pretty in the traditional sense I thought that the resulting pizza had a nice flavor. Also, there was no crispiness to speak of. It was too thick (I worried about making it thinner since holes were forming as I stretched it. If the dough has more structure next time Iíll make it thinner. In some places the dough folded over itself (I didnít do this intentionally), but the inside was almost gummy and had almost a raw dough taste.Yeast - To start with the recipe as I interpreted it had too much yeast. I was worried about dough sitting out overnight with so much yeast. I know it doesnít sound like a lot but for a similar amount of pizza dough that I would let rise in the fridge I would add ľ ts. I feel like it was still too much yeast given the recipe. Next time I would use less.Hydration Ė Wow, Iíve worked with slack doughs before but either Iím out of practice or thatís just on the edge of possible. I have a few ideas about how to make this work without lowering the hydration level. If it turns out that the the winning recipe does not require more flour I may consider doing something very untraditional and something that I know wonít go over very wellÖ I may shape it on parchment. This way I donít need to add so much flour. The people who have higher temperature ovens canít do this but Iím pretty certain with 550 I can use parchment without a problem.Salt/Sugar Ė No problems for now so I donít plan to change theseOil Ė I think 2% sounded reasonable but each time that I folded it I used oil and a little flour, at the end of the day I feel like I added a significant amount of oil to the recipe. As a result next time I may measure 2% for the oil but not add any into the initial dough. Then I would add a little each time I mix so I know how much oil I have added in total. I lost track but I may have added an additional 2% of oil throughout each time I moved a ball into a bowl or kneaded it.Toppings- I think that the pizza was definitely able to handle more sauce and cheese than a high gluten pizza would have been able to hold. The problem is that I made the dough thicker than I would have liked because it wasnít holding together. As a result it was moist too moist. It was almost dense in the middle (with thick dough and a lot of sauce and cheese on top. I can cut back on the sauce and keep the cheese assertive (I think the cheese worked well). I can also try to find (or make a thicker sauce and use less of it. I also considered adding other toppings to my pizza but I wanted to start with a straightforward version so I could focus on the basics. Perhaps the basics for this pizza require some assertive toppings.Mixing Ė The technique that I used to mix the dough helps the dough to be easy to work with. When working with high gluten white flour it doesnít stretch back so much, I had the opposite problem with this dough; it was like nothing was holding the dough together therefore for my next round Iím not planning to use this technique. Also, the dough is so wet that Iím not worried about anything not dissolving so Iíll probably add everything except the yeast, mix a few times then add the yeast and mix some more.24 hour rise ĖI liked the flavor (and potential) of the dough, but 24 hours out of the fridge seemed like it was too long. In the morning the dough looked really puffy (and probably ready to use). By the late afternoon it had collapsed. I donít know much of the technical stuff but it was as if when it collapsed it lost its structure and gluten and there wasnít anything holding it together. In order to keep the great flavor and not have the dough fall apart in my hands I plan to do a longer cold rise (Am I reinventing the wheel here?). Also, Iím going to add some sourdough starter that I happen to have. Iím too lazy to maintain 2 starters so for now Iím going to use my regular starter (made with bread flour)Iím happy for any feedback or thought about what I might have done wrong.

Michael, I have had some luck with 100% whole wheat and hydration in the 70 to 75% range. You might want to start there, I had a lot of trouble with sticking at the higher rates. I also had the breakdowns you mentioned which make it hard to stretch without tearing, and in some samples the dough was unusable - I couldn't get it out of the container without it coming apart. Good luck and keep us posted.

So I used the below recipe/procedure and I think it tasted a bit bland. The consistency was great!!! I am very happy with it not coming out like a rock, but the flavor was lacking. Would more salt help? Is it because I used the bulk flour from my local kroger/fred meyer? Just curious how I could get the flavor a little closer to my high gluten flour.

That guy in the video looks to be using regular white flour or some blend of WW. If you folllow my latest recipe and use the Gold Medal WW flour you'll find that 82% hydration handles very eaisily and stretches better than some white flour recipes.

I made the preferment at 6 pm the night before. Just mix all ingredients in a small bowl, stir again in about 30 minutes, cover and let sit for 12 hours at room temp.

Put all ingredients (water first) including the preferment into the mixer bowl. I used a KitchenAid K5SS with a spiral hook. Mix for 1 minute to combine. Let rest for 30 minutes then mix on low for 3 minutes. Turn out onto counter and cover with a large stainless steel bowl. Perform a stretch and fold every 3 hours. Scale and ball dough at 10 hours, let rise about 2 hours and cook at 700 degrees for 3 minutes in the LBE. Use 180 gm of dough to make a 10" pizza. Recipe makes 5 pizzas.

Joe, Like a hammer, you hit the nail on the head. This is a fairly low salt recipe as pizza doughs go. Some recipes use more than twice as much salt. Feel free to boost the salt to at least 2% and if you feel brave go for a blood pressure blasting 3%. You may have to increase the yeast a little to compensate for the increased salt content. Let us know how it works out.

A convenient way to measure small quantities is by dilution. For 1/64 TSP yeast using a standard set which only goes to 1/8 TSP, put 1 TSP yeast and 7 TSP flour into a small container and mix well, then add 1/8 TSP of this mix to your recipe - 1/8 TSP times 1/8 dilution equals 1/64 TSP. This can also be done by weight, and using liquids. One caveat is that the two components mix well - for instance, instant powdered milk(large fluffy particles) will concentrate at the top if mixed with sugar(smaller dense particles). Because of the variable airspace in powdered ingredients, which is dependent on particle shape and size distribution plus the amount of packing, a cup of dry powder plus a cup of water will always total to less than two cups. Using this trick with liquid plus solid ingredients must be done by weight. The difference in packing fraction between yeast and flour powders will introduce some error, but it will be small - probably less than the errors inherent in measuring 1/64 TSP.

Old recipes often call for "sifted" flour, since you couldn't log into amazon or go to a local shop and buy an inexpensive and accurate balance, but everybody had a measuring cup from the local tinsmith. My German grandma always used a sifter in baking, which stayed in the flour bin under her kitchen counter. By using a sifter to unpack flour, and letting gravity, a constant force, repack it, the results are more consistent. However, the physical properties(particle shape and size distribution) of different flour, and of nominally the same flour e.g "whole wheat" from different manufacturers, particularly artisanal products, will be different, so even sifting is not perfectly reproducible. I'd bet that the Quality Control people at King Arthur sift a production sample into a fixed volume, then weigh it to make sure its consistent, since most home cooks, and recipes, still use cups to measure. Serious chefs like Villa Roma use weight. The King Arthur website has a video about "how to measure flour" for less serious cooks like me.